The Lower House in Grangegorman Wins Two Prestigious Awards
The Lower House on TU Dublin's Grangegorman Campus has won two prestigious awards for an ambitious project to bring the oldest building campus back into use.
Dating from 1812, the former psychiatric hospital building was conserved and part-reconstructed to house a multi-functional student centre for TU Dublin and the Grangegorman Development Agency, with the project winning a Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) Award and International Construction Project Management Association (ICPMA) Award this week.
RIAI Award
The RIAI works to inspire excellence in Architecture to deliver a sustainable and resilient future, and the awards recognise the contribution Registered Architects make to the built environment. This year's awards recognised The Lower House by Fitzgerald Kavanagh & Partners as the winners of the highly competitive Conservation, Adaptation and Re-Use category.
The jury citation said, “The Lower House at Grangegorman project is one of rescue and re-use, as against repair and restoration. Dating from 1812, the former psychiatric hospital is conserved and part-reconstructed to house a multi-functional student centre for TU Dublin. This project is distinctive for its confident use of modern materials yet careful conservation of historic fabric within an intelligent plan layout. The building has been imaginatively rethought. Housing diverse functions – including gym, canteen, music rooms and student administration – this vibrant student centre represents an adaptation of and confident departure from the building's original role. And yet, the original building is somehow never forgotten.”
TU Dublin and the Grangegorman Development Agency also won the coveted Working Alliance trophy at this year's ICPMA Awards held in Munich.
It won’t wear another winter well — Colm Redmond’s (FKP) summary to Dublin City Council’s conservation team in late 2018 rendered in cold relief the impetus to redevelop the remains of Grangegorman’s former Richmond District Lunatic Asylum (c.1815). The imposing quadrangle – over the course of its two centuries – oscillated uncomfortably between innovative origins and subsequent overcrowding before a programme of site clearance in the mid-1980s left only the shell of its southern side. Since named the Lower House, it was stabilised by the GDA in 2015. By 2018 the GDA team had devised a project to incrementally renew the structure as a physical and social asset for our stakeholder, TU Dublin. It is now a bustling home to the University’s students’ union, sports, societies & music practice studios.
Congratulations to everyone in TU Dublin, the Grangegorman Development Agency and Fitzgerald Kavanagh & Partners for winning these awards and their tireless efforts to restore this important part of Dublin's history.